What joystick is it?

The Gravis Gamepad, which was the most widespread of the digital joysticks, works just fine in DOS and presumably should in XP. It has no special tricks, it just gives two states for the "joystick": stick in the middle or stick fully pressed moved to the side.

I think it could be an issue with the gameport? If it's not in a soundcard but integrated to the motherboard.
I never got it to work properly in XP but 98 it does.

It has been a while since I posted this, but I think what I was trying to do is to use digital controllers with a gameport plug, things such as a Logitech Cyberman 2, Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro, or Interact Racing FX wheel. Each of these are from that weird period before USB controllers, but after strictly analog gameport input.

From what I understand, these were developed for Windows 95/98, so they were never capable of working with DOS, and driver support in XP and later dropped digital gameport controllers. Some of the games I'm trying to use are DOS games, but even running withing Win98 they don't respond to the digital controllers.

When I refer to digital controllers, I don't mean it as on 0/1 on off switches as in the Gravis or any other gamepad. I'm referring to the data lines that the controller uses on the gameport to transmit the information from its encoders. The Cyberman2 and Wingman have internal optical encoders if I recall correctly, vs resistance based potentiometers.

Anyway, I have several of these limbo controllers that can only be used with a very small subset of games, so I'm just hoping to be able to put them to better use. I have a number of games that haven't really been played as I'm in need of an appropriate controller for each.

Thanks!

I don't know about the Logitech Cyberman 2 or the Interact Racing FX wheel, but the SideWinder 3D Pro WAS designed to work in DOS, but only in analog mode if the game or application did not provide specific SideWinder 3D Pro digital support (like MechWarrior 2).

The information sheet provided with the 3D Pro says the following:

Digital Mode Digital mode uses new technology to provide optimal speed, precision, and performance. In addition, the optical tr […]
Show full quote

Digital Mode
Digital mode uses new technology to provide optimal speed, precision, and performance. In addition, the optical tracking system maximizes reliability and eliminates drift.

SideWinder 3D Pro automatically functions in digital mode when:

Your game is running with Windows 95 (including an MS-DOS window in Windows 95).

The SideWinder 3D Pro software is installed.

SideWinder 3D Pro is selected in the Windows 95 Joystick Properties window.

Analog Mode
In analog mode, SideWinder 3D Pro works much like a conventional analog joystick with the addition of the optical tracking system that maximizes reliability and eliminates drift.

SideWinder 3D Pro automatically functions in analog mode when:

Your game is running with MS-DOS or Windows 3.1 (including an MS-DOS window in Windows 3.1).

-Or-

You haven't installed the SideWinder 3D Pro software.

-Or-

SideWinder 3D Pro isn't selected in the Windows 95 Joystick Properties window.

So in vanilla DOS you should see (analog) CH Flightstick Pro emulation or (analog) ThrustMaster emulation depending on the position of the switch on the bottom of the device. You will lose some functionality with either analog setting compared to the fully digital mode.

Grendel's USB adapter offers hope to those wanting to use the SideWinder 3D Pro, Precision Pro, or Force Feedback Pro with recent OSes or machines without a gameport:

http://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?t=15526

If you are getting "not connected" errors in the 3D Pro joystick properties window in Win9x, you might try these drivers:

MS SideWinder 3D Pro Win9x Drivers

Thanks - the Sidewinder was used as an example since I don't have mine anymore, and I had forgotten it was a dual format controller. I may have to see about getting another one as it may be the best option for some of these games.

i have a logitech joypad (the one that looks exactly like the ps2 one... w/ the feedback thing and stuff) and it worked great under ubuntu... i used it with zsnes mostly.

The Gravis gamepad pro's came with a driver disk containing a DOS TSR that allowed you to map keyboard keys to all the buttons on the gamepads. This can be used to create profiles for different games and load them on demand.It was developed for their GRIP multiport but also worked fine on the gamepad pro's in GRIP mode. There is a switch on the back of the gamepad to switch to GRIP mode or analog joystick I or II.

The GRIP multiport is an interesting device in itself. They were sold with 2 6 button pads and had ports for 4 of those. It also has an additional 2 normal joystick ports on the side that allow you to wire up analog joystiks and what not. I hope to run into one of these sometime in the future. The original is quite rare, but I do run into the ugly EA sports edition from time to time.

Just some more info on the subject that came to light. After installing the GRiP software in windows 9x you can find the TSR called GKLOAD.EXE in the x:\program files\gravis\ directory. An appropriate keyset can be made using the gravis keyboard mapper in windows.